Animal Protection Agency

One thing that gets harder for me to tolerate every year is hearing people casually brag about killing snakes.

This weekend, while I was volunteering my time to provide free animal education, I had multiple adults standing near one of my snakes laughing and telling stories about chopping snakes’ heads off with shovels, hoes, and other tools.

Think about that for a second.

Would you stand in front of someone’s dog and laugh about all the dogs you’ve killed?

Would you stand in front of a cat rescue and tell stories about beating stray cats to death because they wandered into your yard?

Of course not. People would be horrified.

But somehow, when the animal is a snake, we’re expected to smile politely and pretend it’s normal.

The reality is that the vast majority of snakes in our area are harmless. They’re not bothering you. They’re not chasing you. They’re not plotting your demise. They’re quietly eating rodents, helping control pests, and trying to survive in a world where humans seem determined to hate them for existing.

You don’t have to like snakes.

You don’t have to hold them.

You don’t even have to be comfortable around them.

But if your first instinct when you see a harmless wild animal is to kill it, and then laugh about it, that’s not something to be proud of.

As I get older, I find it harder and harder to listen to those conversations without speaking up. So if you catch me getting a little less patient when I hear someone bragging about killing wildlife during a program, now you know why.

Respect doesn’t have to be reserved only for the animals we find cute.